11: The Importance of Publicity Through Social Media
with Andrew Ousley
What is publicity and why is it important for a musician?
Ultimately, I think, I think of publicity as storytelling. It's refining your own story and what differentiates you, and then telling it in such a way that you get other people excited about it, believing in it, and ultimately telling your story for you. And with earned media, it's about getting-- leveraging the reach that they have with their platform, whether it be a newspaper or a blog, radio show, etc., and trying to get them to tell your story to their following. That's sort of at the purist level of publicity.
Kellogg:
And while it may seem like a really obvious answer, why is publicity important in the cycle of, sort of, concerts-- a musician's life?
Ousley:
It's important because it builds momentum around your career, and the perception of momentum, and the belief in your story and in your, sort of, your brand that what, what you represent to people, and it validates it, it spreads it so that the end goal being you want as many people as possible to think the same thing about you because that is how you then have a real impact with your message and with your, your, sort of, public presence.
Kellogg:
So why is social media important for freelance musicians?
Ousley:
Social media is important because it allows you to build a community around yourself, around your music, your story. And it, it allows you to have this unique blend of branding, marketing, publicity, all rolled into one.
And you have this combination of a feedback loop with your community, as well as an echo chamber where you can share content, share storytelling and get feedback on it from them. So it's this utterly unique blend of all of these other aspects of promotion.
Kellogg:
So when it works well, what does social media do for an artist?
Ousley:
It creates an army of supporters, of evangelists, it, it gives you a platform that you control the reach of, and it allows you to tell your story in a more ever more impactful way and to, to harness that, that-- the power of that storytelling for, for the benefit of your career.
Kellogg:
I know that there are so many musicians engaging in social media right now, and some love it, they thrive with it, they do it very well, and some absolutely can't stand it. They find it very distasteful. What do you have to say to people that really resist it, resent it, or maybe just even refuse to engage with it?
Ousley:
By and large, unfortunately, you have to do social media. You have to engage with it. Some, there are outliers, but it is, it is a very, it i-- it is leaving behind a tool in your toolbox that, that helps you to further your career. So it's not-- I recommend that everybody engage with it. I think the biggest problem comes that many artists, particularly developing artists, have no idea how to do it, and they get no real guidance often in how to do it.
And so they have this incredibly complex, sprawling thing that is social media that they know has an impact on their career, but they have no idea how to use it. And so often artists I see waste a huge amount of time, and energy, and anxiety, frankly, on something without knowing if it's having a good effect on their career and it's serving them. And sometimes the worst cases I see people put that time and that energy in and it can actually hurt their career. So I think knowing the bare minimum of what you need to do and how to do it is, is hugely important. And, but, it-- you have to do it at the end of the day, in some way.
Kellogg:
Or, I guess, you have to hire somebody to help you do it. I mean, there are other options--
Ousley:
There are. But I, I do recommend, as with publicity, as with everything, that artists understand how to do it themselves and do it themselves to an extent before hiring somebody else, because you will know much better how good they are at it and what result they're getting for you.
Kellogg:
So in some ways, it's like many of the skills that people need off stage over decades and centuries of concertizing.
Ousley:
Absolutely
Kellogg:
It's just a new category of skills that has come into existence.
Ousley:
Very much so. And I think like publicity and branding and marketing, it's one that artists need to understand now because it is, so much of it falls to them in the early stages of their career. And, and again, one of the biggest problems of social media is because it's often can be so opaque, if you don't understand how to do it, there are a lot of people who you can hire to do it who don't necessarily know what they're doing either. So you want to understand how it works on a visceral level before you engage somebody to take it off your hands.